Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Let's be clear what it is we're voting on here today. This is a short-term, 2-week CR. It cuts $4 billion, a little over $4 billion in spending that both parties have agreed to in the past, both bodies in the House and Senate have agreed to in the past, and agreed to by the White House. So what are we talking about here? This is a 2-week extension. It's about as clean as you can make it. And, oh, by the way, speaking about that bill we passed 2 weeks ago, H.R. 1, that cuts $61 billion off of current spending, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said as late as today that that bill will have no harmful effect on the economy. I don't know that there's a bigger, better source on the economy than the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and he says no problem. Now, what the Democrats want to do, Madam Speaker--this is pretty simple--they want to freeze spending. They want to freeze spending at the biggest bloated level we've ever had. {time} 1530 They increased spending 84 percent over the last 2 years. Now they want to freeze and they'll go no higher. Well, it's bloated. We want to take it back down to where it's reasonable, where we can live with it. So we don't want another $1.7 trillion-a-year deficit like they've had the last year and, before that, something approaching that. So I ask Members to vote for this short-term CR, to give us time to work with the other body on H.R.…”